Every so often on the message boards at CriterionForum (no affiliation with Criterion itself), there's a user poll which catalogs the best films of a given time period. It looks like we're on our second time around for each of the decades, and for the first time, I participated in the poll for the Best Films of the 1990s. When the poll was conducted in 2005 for the 90s, Wes Anderson's Rushmore was on top; it's been replaced by Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man this time around. I won't post my own personal list, as I didn't put a whole lot of thought into my choices, and there's probably quite a few films I'd be ashamed to say I haven't seen, but here were the results when compiled earlier this month.
01. Dead Man - d. Jim Jarmusch02. Chungking Express - d. Wong Kar-wai
03. The Thin Red Line - d. Terrence Malick
04. Eyes Wide Shut - d. Stanley Kubrick
05. Sátántangó - d. Béla Tarr
06. Happy Together - d. Wong Kar-wai
07. A Brighter Summer Day - d. Edward Yang
08. Goodfellas - d. Martin Scorsese
09. The Double Life of Véronique [La double-vie de Véronique] - d. Krzysztof Kieslowski
10. Three Colours: Red [Trois couleurs: Rouge] - d. Krzysztof Kieslowski
11. Rushmore - d. Wes Anderson12. Three Colours: Blue [Trois couleurs: Bleu] - d. Krzysztof Kieslowski
13. The Wind Will Carry Us - d. Abbas Kiarostami
14. Safe - d. Todd Haynes
15. Miller's Crossing - d. Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
16. Magnolia - d. Paul Thomas Anderson
17. The Big Lebowski - d. Joel Coen
18. Fucking Åmål [Show Me Love] - d. Lukas Moodysson
19. Irma Vep - d. Olivier Assayas
20. Close Up - d. Abbas Kiarostami
21. Rosetta - d. Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne22. Van Gogh - d. Maurice Pialat
23. Boogie Nights - d. Paul Thomas Anderson
24. To Sleep with Anger - d. Charles Burnett
25. Short Cuts - d. Robert Altman
26. Life and Nothing But [La vie et rien d'autre] - d. Bertrand Tavernier
27. Ratcatcher - d. Lynne Ramsay
28. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me - d. David Lynch
29. Pulp Fiction - d. Quentin Tarantino
30. Lost Highway - d. David Lynch
31. All About My Mother [Todo sobre mi madre] - d. Pedro Almodóvar32. Fallen Angels - d. Wong Kar-wai
33. Husbands and Wives - d. Woody Allen
34. Exotica - d. Atom Egoyan
35. Groundhog Day - d. Harold Ramis
36. Raise the Red Lantern - d. Zhang Yimou
37. Jackie Brown - d. Quentin Tarantino
38. Unforgiven - d. Clint Eastwood
39. Naked - d. Mike Leigh
40. La promesse - d. Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne
41. Fargo - d. Joel Coen, Ethan Coen42. Naked Lunch - d. David Cronenberg
43. Goodbye South Goodbye - d. Hou Hsiao-hsien
44. Buffalo '66 - d. Vincent Gallo
45. The Taste of Cherry - d. Abbas Kiarostami
46. The Hole - d. Tsai Ming-liang
47. Underground - d. Emir Kusturica
48. Lessons of Darkness [Lektionen in Finsternis] - d. Werner Herzog
49. Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers - d. Nick Park
50. La belle noiseuse - d. Jacques Rivette
51. Crash - d. David Cronenberg52. Barton Fink - d. Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
53. The Silence of the Lambs - d. Jonathan Demme
54. Time Regained [Le temps retrouvé] - d. Raoul Ruiz
55. La cérémonie - d. Claude Chabrol
55. The Power of Kangwon Province - d. Hong Sang-soo
57. L.A. Confidential - d. Curtis Hanson
58. Ed Wood - d. Tim Burton
59. Sink or Swim - d. Su Friedrich
60. Princess Mononoke - d. Hayao Miyazaki
61. Days of Being Wild - d. Wong Kar-wai62. Only Yesterday - d. Isao Takahata
63. Beau travail - d. Claire Denis
63. Heat - d. Michael Mann
65. Mother and Son - d. Aleksandr Sokurov
66. Fight Club - d. David Fincher
67. Lovers on the Bridge [Les amants du Pont-Neuf] - d. Leos Carax
67. Being John Malkovich - d. Spike Jonze
69. After Life - d. Hirokazu Koreeda
70. L'humanité - d. Bruno Dumont
71. El sol del membrillo [The Dream of Life] - d. Víctor Erice72. Flowers of Shanghai - d. Hou Hsiao-hsien
72. My Own Private Idaho - d. Gus Van Sant
74. Nénette & Boni - d. Claire Denis
74. Trust - d. Hal Hartley
76. Funny Games - d. Michael Haneke
77. The Long Day Closes - d. Terence Davies
78. Breaking the Waves - d. Lars von Trier
79. The Kingdom [Riget] - d. Morten Arnfred, Lars von Trier
80. La haine - d. Mathieu Kassovitz
80. Hana-bi [Fireworks] - d. Takeshi Kitano
82. Hoop Dreams - d. Steve James83. The Match Factory Girl [Tulitikkutehtaan tyttö] - d. Aki Kaurismäki
84. The Straight Story - d. David Lynch
85. JFK - d. Oliver Stone
85. Whisper of the Heart - d. Yoshifumi Kondo
87. Election - d. Alexander Payne
87. The Sweet Hereafter - d. Atom Egoyan
89. Bullets Over Broadway - d. Woody Allen
89. Drifting Clouds [Kauas pilvet karkaavat] - d. Aki Kaurismäki
91. Sonatine - d. Takashi Kitano92. The Celebration [Festen] - d. Thomas Vinterberg
92. A Moment of Innocence - d. Mohsen Makhmalbaf
94. Waiting for Guffman - d. Christopher Guest
95. Seven - d. David Fincher
96. Before Sunrise - d. Richard Linklater
97. The Player - d. Robert Altman
98. The Age of Innocence - d. Martin Scorsese
99. Rebels of the Neon God - d. Tsai Ming-liang
99. Slacker - d. Richard Linklater
Of the list, 6 have never been released on DVD in the US: A Brighter Summer Day, 
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